You do, which is dumb, it should be doable by mouse or really really easy to find. It shouldn't require Googling or hunting. Ctrl+L is listed on page 2 of the keyboard shortcuts for Nautilus when it's arguably such a basic thing that at very least it should be in the stupid hamburger menu. Keyboard shortcuts should be a shortcut not the only way to do something.
It's the same shortcut as in all browsers, same for Ctrl+T or Ctrl+W that operates on tabs (Yes Nemo has tabs). The same way a browser is also a file crawler and viewer. It's the same paradigm. So no definitely not dumb.
And in KeepassXC it's lock database, which is infuriating when it's your muscle memory for "focus that primary thing you type into" and your unlock password is long.
What browser requires you to hit Ctrl+L to enter an URL? I'm not saying the choice of Ctrl+L is dumb, but the choice that the only way to enter a path is Ctrl+L.
I'm a long-time Linux user and I know the short cut and use it often. Nonetheless I have no notion why the Nautilus developers consider this to be a better UI than just rendering an editable path!
Honestly, I'd be fine with it if "edit path" was an option in the dropdown menu for navigation pills. I guess the Nautilus designers drank too much of the Apple kool-aid and decided that advanced features like custom paths should be avoided at all cost.
i actually prefer the pills by default, but what I don't like is that it's not clear you can switch.
Huh, I hadn't considered that they might have a shortcut for it, TIL!
That will definitely easy that pain point a lot, although it's still a somewhat odd decision to not have the path in the bar editable too.
Which incidentally is the same hot key used to go to the url bar on browsers
Mnemonic: L for Location
I've always used ALT-D.
You don't even need that, you can just start typing the path and the path bar will show up on top.